Last week to see this exhibition!

MACLA Presents:
El Laboratorio

Featuring New Work by Rubén Ortiz Torres & Favianna Rodriguez
Commissioned for 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the edge
Exhibition dates: June 4 - August 9, 2008
@ MACLA
510 South First St
San José, CA 95113

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana is pleased to present the commission of two new projects, in collaboration with ZERO1, as part of the 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge.

El Laboratorio

High n' Low Rider is a customized scissor lift that uses low rider hydraulic systems to expand, contract, dance and spin. It transforms itself from a functional working tool into a dynamic abstract sculpture. This piece explores the relationship between Brancusi, constructivism and the low rider pick up truck movement of the late eighties and early nineties. This piece has an important relationship to the San José community as modifying cars into lowriders is a form of cultural expression in the local Latino community.

Watch a video of Rubén Ortiz Torres's "High n' Low Rider"

(Click on image below)

American Dream is a piece that focuses on the lives of immigrant laborers throughout the country - their challenges, their victories, and their role in one of the largest economies in the world. The themes explored will include agribusiness, xenophobia, anti-immigrant legislation, violence against day laborers, criminalization of immigrant workers, detention of immigrants, and the growing number of raids in work places. The piece will be a combination of dynamically generated content from online blogs and RSS feeds, and interviews with immigrant workers. Each of these stories will be represented in a manner that speaks to a wide base of audiences, as a way to humanize the face of immigration.

Exhibition dates: June 4 - August 9, 2008


Gallery Hours:
Wednesday & Thursday
12noon – 7pm
Friday & Saturday
12noon – 5pm

& by special appointment
Free Admission

Funding for this project is made possible by the following: The James Irvine Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Applied Materials Excellence in the Arts: a program of Arts Council Silicon Valley, The NALAC Fund for the Arts, The Ford Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The David & Lucile Packard Foundation.

MACLA is supported, in part, by The City of San José, Arts Council Silicon Valley, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The David & Lucile Packard Foundation, The Castellano Family Foundation, The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Adobe, Applied Materials, and MACLA donors.

Image Credit: Favianna Rodriguez, “Women Workers of the World Unite", print, 2008

Image Credit: Rubén Ortiz Torres, “Hi-N-Lo”, photograph, 2008

For more information about this exhibition please contact Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez at anjee@maclaarte.org.